Dr Matthew Jenner

The recipient of the 2024 RSC Felix Franks Biotechnology Medal was Dr Matthew Jenner, of the Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick.

Matt Jenner received the award for his internationally leading research into the discovery and biosynthesis of natural products through application of innovative mass spectrometry-based approaches. 

Matt received a 1st class degree in Biochemistry in 2010 followed by a PhD in Organic Chemistry, both at the University of Nottingham. Since then he has been, respectively a Research Fellow, Leverhulme early Career Fellow and BBSRC Discovery Fellow at the University of Warwick, followed by appointments as Assistant Professor and then from 2022 UKRI Future Leaders Fellow. 

His most notable work includes the discovery of a novel mode of subunit interaction in polyketide synthases (Nat. Chem. Biol., 2018) and the cryptic chemistry that occurs at this interface (Nat. Chem. Biol., 2022); mapping of a key carrier protein interaction epitope (Chem. Sci., 2021); elucidation of programming steps in an iterative fungal nonribosomal peptide synthetase (Chem. Sci., 2020, Nat. Commun., 2023); and discovery of a novel thioesterase domain capable of acyl chain translocation (Nat. Commun., 2022).

Matt’s outstanding contribution to the field of natural products has combined his expertise in cutting-edge mass spectrometry techniques with challenging biosynthetic questions to provide unique insights and methods for studying complex natural product assembly lines. His work highlights the immense value of interdisciplinary science, which is underscored by the numerous fruitful collaborations he has established in his career to date. His work has challenged previous ‘traditional’ methods for studying polyketide and nonribosomal peptide natural product assembly lines, allowing rapid interrogation of these complex systems. The application of techniques such as intact protein mass spectrometry to monitor the location of biosynthetic intermediates (often conducted using radioactivity assays), and carbene footprinting to map transient protein-protein interactions in natural product assembly lines (otherwise requiring crosslinked crystal structures), have provided unparalleled insights into extremely challenging biosynthetic systems. These mass spectrometry-based approaches are now being employed by other researchers in the field, recognising their value over more traditional approaches. Furthermore, the discoveries that Matt has made using these methods have set the stage for a wealth of bioengineering endeavours to generate novel analogues of natural product scaffolds, an area he is now actively pursuing. 

Matt Jenner will be presented with the award at the RSC Directing Biosynthesis VII Meeting at the University of Birmingham 1-3 July 2024.